Badlands (18 page)

“Did you find the head?”

“Worse.”

She hesitated. It was so cold that when she breathed in she could feel the hairs freeze inside her nostrils. Kirkbride's expression warned her off, but she was curious. The man had shown her the severed body of the MS-13 victim the night before. What could be worse?

At that moment a deputy who'd been out of earshot walked out from around the back of the screen with his long Maglite flashlight and shot the beam toward something stuck to the white screen about eight feet from the ground.

She thought at first it was viscera. Then she realized with a shudder that the bloody mess was a man's penis and testicles. She could see where it had hit the white screen and slid down its face until it froze solid on the surface.

Kirkbride said, “I know the guy who owns this drive-in. It's been a money-loser for years and he was trying to dump it until the boom hit. Now I hear Halliburton bought the land from him for three million so they could put in another equipment yard. It's kind of sad to think that the last thing on the movie screen was Rufus Whiteley's family jewels.”

One of the deputies fake coughed to disguise a laugh.

Cassie closed her eyes and took another deep breath of frigid air.

*   *   *

AT AN
impromptu debriefing held under the marquee of the drive-in, Sheriff Kirkbride stood in the middle of a loose circle of twenty-five of his men—and Cassie. It was so cold she could no longer feel her face. The men huddled close together without embarrassment to keep warm. Clouds of condensation from their breath rose over the group and hung there like their own private snow cloud. She realized she was standing next to Cam Tollefsen. The events of the day had been so all-consuming and wild she'd almost forgotten about him.

She
knew
her request to the evidence techs to go out to the rollover site and make a foam cast of the bike tire track had been rightfully shunted aside.

Cassie recognized a few of the deputies—Lance Foster, Max Maxfield, Ian Davis, Jim Klug—and already felt a little more part of the team.

“It's been a long day,” Kirkbride said, “and I'm proud of you all. I always told you you'd get ten years of experience in law enforcement in your first six months here, but I may have to change it to
one day
.”

A few men laughed and Cassie tried to smile but her mouth was too frozen to move.

“Obviously, we've got a lot to sort out. It looks to all of us that somebody cut up Rufus Whiteley and drove around town and threw out the parts. They didn't try to cover up what they did—just the opposite—which says to me it's some kind of warning or message. Whether that message is to us or to someone else, who knows?

Kirkbride paused and said, “
Damn,
it's cold.”

“Yeah,” Maxfield said through chattering teeth, “Too bad we don't have someplace warm like the briefing room of the law enforcement center or something.”

Which brought some rough laughter and a couple of calls of “Hear, hear.”

“The reason we're out here,” Kirkbride said, “is because the horse has already left the barn. What happened today in Bakken County is all over the wires and Facebook and Twitter and everything else. I've got a dozen calls from reporters stacked up on my desk and television vans from Bismarck, Fargo, and Minot downtown waiting for me to show up for a press briefing. We've got hysterical parents and pissed-off county commissioners and I don't blame them one bit.

“What I want to tell all you guys is let me handle the press and handle the heat. That's my job. Your job is to do damned good police work so we can put this all together and throw the bad guys in a cage. Whatever you were doing before today goes on the back burner. The first order of priority is to find the guy—or guys—who did this. Are you all on board?”

Cassie saw no signs of disagreement, although Tollefsen remained mute. She thought she detected somewhat of a smirk on his face, but it could be the cold, she thought.

As they broke up and returned to their vehicles, Cassie realized Kirkbride was walking alongside her.

She said, “Drop everything and concentrate on this?”

“Except for you,” he said under his breath.

*   *   *

ON THE
way home she'd waited in the drive-in lane at McDonald's for fifteen minutes. She'd never been in a fast-food line that took longer, but when she thought about bailing out she realized she was pinned in by other vehicles both front and back. The line extended out into the frozen street and around the block.

She'd ordered, received her change from a flinty blond woman who was at least a decade older than most fast-food workers she was used to, and had driven back to the county apartment building. It wasn't until she shifted her Yukon into park that the pure exhaustion hit her and swept her away.

*   *   *

AFTER TWENTY
minutes with her eyes closed, Cassie sat up with a grunt. Something had awakened her, and she realized she'd fallen asleep in the Yukon outside her own building. She cursed herself for being so stupid. The warmth of her apartment was thirty yards away. She'd promised to call Ben before he went to bed. And although the Yukon was a late model, the potential for carbon monoxide poisoning in a stationary car was always a possibility.

She realized what had jarred her awake was the vibration of her cell phone ringing in the inside pocket of her new sheriff's department coat. By the time she retrieved her phone it had stopped.

There were two messages. One was from Isabel, her mother. The other was from County Prosecutor Leslie Behaunek in North Carolina. Cassie looked at the clock display on the dashboard—eight thirty. Which meant ten thirty in Wilson. Pretty late to call with something mundane, she thought.

Cassie grabbed the McDonald's bag, the bottle of wine, the six-pack, and her briefcase and went out into the stunningly cold night.

*   *   *

“YOU WON'T
have to do anything,” Cassie said to Isabel on her cell phone while she put all the items on the kitchen table and shed the parka. “They'll come in and pack everything up and label each box. Then they'll load the boxes into the truck and head east to North Dakota. All you'll need to do is put Ben in the car with some of his books or toys and drive here next week.”

“I've never heard of such a thing before,” Isabel said, offended. “They just walk into our place and pack our things?”

“Yes. That's what moving companies do.”

“Well, needless to say, I've never used one before. I've probably moved a dozen times in my life and you know what that was like.”

Cassie did, and they weren't pleasant memories. Isabel filled her VW bus with most of their possessions leaving just enough space for Cassie and drove across town to whatever cheap hovel was replacing the last cheap hovel. Whatever couldn't fit into the bus was piled on the sidewalk with a sign that said,
FREE STUFF—TAKE IT. PEACE.

Isabel didn't believe in crass materialism, she had explained.

“We can afford it now,” Cassie said, rolling her eyes. “The sheriff's department here will pay for the move.”

“But it's such a waste of taxpayer money.”

“It's their money to waste,” Cassie said. “Now can you put Ben on?”

“Yes, he's right here waiting. But first you have to tell me about what I heard on the news today. Something that happened in the town you want us to move to.”

Cassie sighed. The sheriff was right: it was all over the news. “Not with Ben right there,” she said.

“Why—so he won't be scared to come there?” Isabel asked. “Doesn't that tell you everything one needs to know about us moving to North Dakota? That you can't even talk about it?”

“We're handling it,” Cassie said. But she had to concede that her mother had a point. “Now please put Ben on.”

*   *   *

WHILE SHE
talked to her son about his last days of school—his friends wanted to throw him a good-bye party, which brought unexpected tears to her eyes—Cassie put the bag of hamburgers and fries into the microwave and set it at thirty seconds to heat up the food.

The wine had a screw top for which she was grateful because she didn't have a corkscrew. She filled a drinking glass three-quarters full and took a long pull while listening to Ben. The bad wine was good.

Ben asked Cassie if he could buy a fishing license and a fishing pole when he got to North Dakota.

“Yes, but it's cold here right now. Everything's frozen over. But yes, we can do that.”

Ben told her he might want to go ice fishing, maybe, as she secured the phone to her ear with her shoulder so her hands were free. She opened the refrigerator door for the beer, put it inside, and closed it.

Then she stood still, frozen inside, suddenly unable to make out a single word Ben was saying.

She thought, No. It had to be a hallucination brought on by what she'd been through that day.

“Honey, can you hold on for a minute?” she said.

“Okay,” Ben said impatiently.

Cassie put the phone on the counter and braced herself and opened the refrigerator door once again as the microwave chimed that it was done. She paid no attention to it.

Rufus Whiteley's head was on the top shelf next to the six-pack of beer. She recognized it from his driver's license photo that had been circulated through the department. The eyes were closed but there was a black pool of blood that had drained down through the shelving onto the glass top of the vegetable bin.

“Ben, please put your grandma Isabel back on.”

“Why? What's wrong?”

“Do it, please.” Somehow, she didn't shout it.

When Isabel took the phone Cassie said, “I'm postponing the moving truck until further notice.”

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

AT THE
same time, on the darkened porch of a dilapidated farmhouse just outside the city limits of Grimstad, Willie Dietrich burst out the door and shoved the muzzle of a pistol deep into the mouth of the man who'd knocked to come in.

As the man struggled and gagged, Dietrich said, “Well look who's here. It's the Winkster.”

“You said to come by,” Winkie tried to say. But it came out as a series of squeaks and grunts. Dietrich stepped back and withdrew the gun and dried the barrel on his jeans. Winkie spat the taste out. His spittle froze instantly between his boots on the concrete stoop.

“Yeah,” Dietrich said, as if forgetting was no fault of his own. “You know there's no product now, right? You know that.”

“Of course, man. Jesus, that gun hurt. You mighta broke my tooth, man.”

Blink
.

“You're
fine,
asshat.” Dietrich laughed huskily.

He was big, blond, and manic. Winkie could never be sure if Dietrich acted crazy because he was high or because he was naturally crazy or because he wanted everyone to think he was crazy. Dietrich had been so violent as a middle linebacker on the high school football team that opposing coaches boycotted playing the Grimstad Vikings. It had been quite the controversy when Winkie was a junior. Not that Winkie ever played football, but Friday nights were party time during and after games and the boycott ruined the month of October that year.

Despite hard living and a couple of stints in jail, Dietrich still had the intimidating physique of the middle linebacker he'd once been, Winkie thought. Broad shoulders, slablike pecs, and six-pack abs all on display because Dietrich wore only a tight wifebeater, jeans, and no shoes or socks.

“Fuckin' cold, man,” Dietrich said, as if accusing Winkie of the weather. He hopped from one bare foot to the other like the concrete was hot instead of cold.

“Twenty-three below, man. I seen it on the bank sign in town.”

He paused, then asked, “Can we go inside?”

“No, dude, let's stand out here on the porch all night.”

Blink
.

“Come in, Winkie. But like I told you, there's no product and I ain't selling you any of my private stash so don't even fuckin' ask.”

“I won't.”

“Don't, douche.”

“I
won't
.”

*   *   *

THE SHABBY
front room was overheated from a glowing woodstove in the corner of it. There was a large pile of split hardwood stacked up next to it, and the floor was littered with bits of bark. It was a cheap stove, Winkie thought, because the top was glowing red and he could glimpse yellow flames through cracks on the side. Winkie shed his coat while he stood in the entryway but Dietrich didn't indicate where he should hang it. The room was dim and lit with a dozen or so candles for effect, Winkie guessed, because there were a few unlit lamps in the dark corners.

ESPN was on the big-screen TV but the sound was muted. “SportsCenter.”

Two women—a blonde and a tall black beauty—were in the kitchen down the hallway. Winkie could smell baking. The women looked more like prostitutes on their night off than bakers, Winkie thought: big hair, high heels, tight tops. The tall black woman squinted to see who he was in the gloom of the living room, but she apparently wasn't very impressed when she saw him because she turned away and went back to baking.

“Hash brownies,” Dietrich said. “They're making hash brownies. Don't even think of asking.”

“I won't.”

“Drop the coat,” Dietrich said, “arms out and spread 'em.”

Winkie did as told and Dietrich patted him down like a professional, even pulling his pant legs up to grope inside the shafts of his boots.

“You wearing a wire?”

“No.”

“Gotta check,” Dietrich said, roughly unbuttoning the front of Winkie's flannel shirt and opening it with a rough flourish.